Exciting Development: Obama Organizers at Salon This Wednesday ~
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I just hung up from talking with Jeff Winkler of the “Obama organizing fellowship”. He will be with us this Wednesday, 23 July for the Salon pot luck to tell us about the strategy to win Hamilton County for Obama. He will bring Jackie Lewis, the Obama organizer for Clifton. Here are all the things I learned from our conversation:
The “Obama organizing fellowship” is a cadre of 36000 volunteers nationwide who signed up for a 6 week stint of organizing, coming to a close the end of this week. From this group will be drawn the chiefs of the campaign effort. There are currently 28 of these serving in the Cincinnati office, and 20 of these will be converting as of next week to paid, full time professional status.
Jeff himself is from Phoenix, has a wife and children there he will be returning to. He said something like, In order to be chosen for the core group an organizer has to have had experience in either Ohio or Florida.
Four years ago Kerry came close to carrying Hamilton County, and Tim Burke, the chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party believes we will carry it this time for sure.
The strategy is to register half of the 600,000 still-unregistered African American Ohio voters ... We have succeeded in registering already 45% of these.. And then to get them to the polls on election day. On election day we will have vans with two workers in each, calling and collecting voters, taking them to the polls.
Jeff said Hillary and Bill Clinton succeeded in registering 120,000 new voters in Ohio. Now there are 2.5 or 3 registered Democrats for every registered Republican in Ohio. However, the African American voter only votes at the rate of about 15%!
Changing this will spell victory.
Incidentally, October 3 is the last day to register to vote.
The Campaign has two offices here: 1524 Madison Rd, right near deSales Corner, directly across the street from the Kerry campaign headquarters building. The other is in Northside at 4016 Hamilton Avenue, East side of the street, first block from the viaduct.
I told Jeff we would be interested in knowing not so much Why vote for Obama, but rather, What can I do to help the campaign.
He said from now for the next 6 weeks and even into September we want to have as many houseparties as possible. Gatherings at your house of 15 – 30 people where an organizer will come and make a presentation. Be thinking about having a houseparty this summer... Soon.
So the discussion Wednesday will be a little about Obama’s policies and our concerns there, but a lot about the strategy for winning Hamilton County in November.
Come at 5:45 with a dish to share and have dinner, OR come at 6:15 just for the talking.
Never been to the salon before? Need more info? Go to http://www.lloydhouse.com and follow the link “pot luck salon” for directions, food suggestions, parking...
Hope to see you here on Wednesday. Time to wake up and start paddling. We want this man in the White House.
Ellen
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